FAQ: Why do you ask for donations in cash if you’re building a system that uses something other than cash?

FAQ: Why do you ask for donations in cash if you’re building a system that uses something other than cash?

Some people call projects like ours “alternative currency”. Legally and philosophically, we are not this. Legally, mutual credit is a type of accounting system that was made legal via The Exchange and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982. Philosophically, we aren’t a complete alternative to the banking system but a complement to it. Many people who use OSCurrency via one of our partner networks, use cash or other national currencies as part of the transaction (aka a ‘split-tender’) transaction. Which is a long way of saying OSC is built to handle multiple monetary and payment systems and our operations and expenses are also denominated in multiple payment systems and currencies. Some of the same expenses we have that you have (hosting, taxes,postage, platform fees) are only payable in US money, so we ask for small donations here and there to help cover those.

Big Picture: Imagine a system where you can have one transaction that is partially payable in cash, your time, and your local trade dollars. That’s what we’re building.

If you’d like to help support our project in the old-fashioned way, you can donate via our Open Collective Page.

If you’d like to see or contribute to our code, you can view our github page.